I'm a biologist. For the past four months, I've been part of an international research team stationed in one of the most isolated parts of the Arctic.

The mission was simple enough.

Study ancient ice layers to reconstruct historical climate patterns.

Important work, sure, but not the kind of thing you expect to haunt you.

Our team had ten people.

Geologists, glaciologists, biologists like me, and technicians to keep everything running.

We were equipped with state-of-the-art drilling rigs, spectrometers and thermal

imaging systems. The station itself was a prefab structure perched on miles of endless white tundra.

Outside, the air could freeze your skin in seconds and the wind howled like it wanted to tear the building apart.

Inside, it was the constant noise, the hum of the machinery, the chatter of combs,

and, when the ice shifted beneath us, a low, resonant groaning that rattled through the floors.

Despite all the tech, the work wasn't glamorous. low resonant groaning that rattled through the floors.

Despite all the tech, the work wasn't glamorous.

My job was to analyze any organic material we pulled from the ice cores, ancient pollen,

microbial remnants, that sort of thing.

Most days were just cataloging and running samples under the microscope

while the rest of the team drilled. The monotony of it all weighed us. Sleep was broken into short

shifts and the lack of sunlight messed with our circadian rhythms. People started snapping at each other over little things,

whose turn it was the cook, why someone didn't clean up their workstation. It was subtle at

first, but you could feel the tension simmering. One of the geologists, Dr. Harris, was particularly

on edge.

He kept saying the ice felt wrong.

...